Fortney: Guilty verdict in Stephan toddler death shocks courtroom

Standing outside the Lethbridge courthouse on a cold, overcast Tuesday, Lisa Weich speaks softly and slowly, as a crowd of reporters and videographers captures her every word. With co-counsel Clayton Giles, she’s just won the longest-lasting case of her career as a prosecutor: two guilty verdicts for parents Collet and David Stephan.

Weich, though, hardly smiles. While she and Giles are confident that justice has been done, it still has been one of the most overwhelming days witnessed in an almost seven-week trial of roller-coaster emotions — frequent tears coming from Collet Stephan and her supporters as well as witnesses and jurors.

Before hearing the jury foreman declare both guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life, the couple and their large and regular entourage had begun the day with an abundance of optimism.

They visited with friends and family, playing with babies and receiving hugs and words of support. They gathered mid-morning outside the courtroom, singing hymns such as How Great Thou Art, before a sheriff told them they were interrupting the proceedings in another courtroom.

At one point, David Stephan’s father, Anthony, called out to everyone in the courthouse hall: “We’re all going to get together and pray, if you’d like to join us.”

For the eight-woman and four-man jury that has listened to the evidence these past few weeks, they relied on facts rather than faith. They focused on the evidence brought by both sides and made their decision — beyond a reasonable doubt — while ignoring the high volume of outside noise that this trial has generated.

Some of that emanated from the accused and their supporters; the family’s public Facebook page, Prayers for Ezekiel, has loudly put forth the argument that their prosecution is more about government corruption, that the couple had been made to take the fall for mistakes made by others.

Ezekiel Stephan was declared dead on March 18, 2012, days after his parents made a frantic 911 call because he had stopped breathing. A year later, they were charged for failing to provide the necessaries of life for the nearly 19-month-old toddler. At the start of the trial in early March, the Crown contended that Ezekiel died after succumbing to what a pathologist testified was a combination of bacterial meningitis and a lung infection.

Crown prosecutors Lisa Weich and Clayton Giles prepare to make a statement outside the courthouse in Lethbridge, Alberta, April 26, 2016. The mother of a toddler who died of meningitis began weeping uncontrollably Tuesday after a jury found her and her husband guilty of failing to provide their ill son with the necessaries of life.David Rossiter /
The Canadian Press

The Crown also contended that the child’s death occurred after he suffered from deteriorating health for more than two weeks; despite this, they say his parents chose herbal remedies and other naturopathic treatments, rather than take their son to a physician or hospital.

The defence argued throughout those weeks that the two were loving, attentive parents who believed firmly their child had been suffering from croup or flu and just didn’t realize the child was in such medical danger.

Late in the trial, the defence brought in Dr. Anny Sauvageau, who testified that the child did not die from bacterial meningitis, that it was more likely he had viral meningitis.

Sauvageau, the former chief medical examiner for Alberta who currently has a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the province, also said the child died because paramedics couldn’t establish an airway quickly and he probably would have survived if the ambulance was properly equipped — a situation Buckley repeatedly referred to in his closing arguments as the “paramedic misadventure.”

In less than 24 hours, the jury came back with its judgment. In the packed courtroom, their foreman, an older man in the second row, stood up and announced the verdicts in a voice just above a whisper.

The verdicts brought gasps in the crowd, then shrieks and sobs. Collet Stephan bent over sobbing; two female jurors began to cry.

The stress of emotion could even be seen on Justice Rodney Jerke’s face, as he agreed with the defence that the Stephans shouldn’t have to hand over their passports as they await sentencing at a date to be determined on June 13.

“This case is not yet over,” said Jerke of what he described as a “difficult and controversial” case for all participants. “But a big chapter has come to a close.”

For the family and friends of the Stephans, they’re not quite ready to accept the closing of that chapter. Although the couple and their defence lawyer left the courthouse without a word, one family member stepped forward to speak his mind.

“Parents now need to be afraid, when their kid has a cough, their kid has a cold…” said Eric Sveinson, the husband of David Stephan’s younger sister. “I believe there’s collusion going on here… I don’t believe our government is secure anymore.”

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